[link to www.thecrimson.com (secure)]

To students, teachers, peers, and the Harvard community: This is my official farewell to the pre-medical track here at Harvard. I hope it finds you well.

While this isn’t just another story about the toxicity of pre-med culture, getting weeded out, or leaving my academic path for some earth-shattering love of another aspiration, it is a story of how white supremacy lives and breathes in each of our bodies, spreading between each of us — body to body — like contagion. It is a story of trying to mitigate chronic pain to create the possibility for genuine healing and recovery. A story of a great act of resistance: a Black woman choosing herself.